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Comment by booboofixer | Hacker News Reader

A well-written article, especially clearly listing out the differences in the forms of communication helped make the point. But sadly, the people most prone to bad-faith communication are also probably least likely to take this criticism and improve. I have also resorted to bad-faith communications in conversations where it seems like that is the only way to be heard.

Consider this example: Person A, displaying some humility, says : "You might be right, there is a chance politician X is in the wrong". Person A assumes this is interpreted by Person B as: "There is uncertainty about politician X being in the wrong" Person B actually interprets this as: "Person A has admitted, without any doubt, to politician X being completely in the wrong"

If I ever find myself in a conversation where I'm in the shoes of Person A, using good-faith communication means actually risking a complete failure of communication. Why even bother to communicate?

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I think some other responders have touched lightly on this but I feel it should be explicitly said that sometimes engaging in conversation is not actually what the other party is doing, even though it might look like it.

Sometimes they are not speaking to you at all, but rather to your listeners. And the larger your pool of listeners the more likely you'll encounter arguments in bad faith because it turns out that if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't scale.

A tangent here is that on private-public platforms like twitter "your listeners" could be an entirely separate set from the people you actually have contact with. Algorithms that signal-boost opinions out of their actual social circle become essentially propaganda posters for a host of varying in and out groups.

My personal opinion is that this is a misaligned incentive that social platforms should correct structurally, rather than via governance or policies. And pushing the corrective actions back down to the individual is a cop-out.

> if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't scale

That phrase helps crystalize the concept very nicely.

Aye, the ideal goal of disussion shouldn't be to persuade in my opinion, but to explore each other's ideas with the aim of modifying and improving each position. I think the process of doing that happens to be the best way to actually get people to go along with something also.

Take an interest, not a position. A position often causes us to feel like we have to defend a position, taking an interest helps increase the likelihood that both parties remain open

That's a good way of thinking about it. Reminds me of when Alan Kay asks "Are ideas like matter? [bumps his fists together] Or are they more like light? [Overlaps his hands]" (roughly paraphrasing there).

The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think.

“The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think.”

Unfortunately large portions of the populace see this as being phony. You must be a red or blue team person, being “people without a tribe” is itself a heresy because by not conforming to this idiotic false dichotomy denies the simpletons and partisans their fallacious little world views. Socrates died in vein, I suppose.

That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.

Anyway, I suspect you mean 'in vain'. Veins are those little tubes in your body that the blood flows through, in generally in the direction of the heart. Since Socrates died by poison one could argue that he literally died "in vein" but this is probably not the interpretation you were going for.

I agree with you on the teams thing, and in my opinion it has a strong relation to two-party systems.

> That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.

Much of the Christian narrative about Jesus and the nature of divinity is influenced by Neo-Platonist thought, and Plato did kind of frame Socrates' story in those terms. So it's not that Socrates was a Jesus figure, Jesus was a Socrates figure.

With many political matters, though, people inherently have to hold positions by virtue of the fact that the issues affect their material interests. You need to remain open in spite of that, but there are also limits to how open one can be when someone else is arguing that you should lose your job or that your health insurance should be able to deny you coverage for care, or maybe that you are culturally or genetically inherently stupid or incapable of self-governance.

Not all controversial matters are political. For instance, it's not inherently political whether global warming is real or whether vaccines work in curtailing a pandemic. Only a certain side in these debates wants to reduce arguments in which there is rational evidence (and important actions to be taken) to something that is merely "political", and therefore a just a matter of constitutional free speech and action.

> explore each other's ideas with the aim of modifying and improving each position.

That's the academic concept of discussion, which is a very fine and respectable (not to mention important) thing.

Sometimes you do have to persuade, because action is required.

For instance, it is important to persuade non-believers in human-caused global warming; it's not just about improving their intellectual position.

> if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't scale.

This is true, but only in a very narrow, specific sense. Arguments don't persuade on their own, they scale with the credibility of the speaker. Speakers gain credibility and respect by:

- Giving good advice.

- Showing good judgement and making accurate predictions.

- Demonstrating that they understand various audience. constituencies, with bonus points for demonstrating that they actually care about these constituencies.

Conversely, there are numerous ways for speakers to destroy that credibility, like a history of making deceptive statements.

For most people, this means good-faith argumentation doesn't scale because they don't have the standing to make people take them seriously. But it isn't a rule of good-faith arguments as such: arguments are just constrained by social factors and by people's finely-tuned heuristics for who's worth taking seriously.

I suspect this is the main reason people are frustrated by internet debates, to the point of wanting to give up on them and just start censoring people. I make what I think is a careful, reasoned case, and in response all I hear is crickets, or trolls, or "lol lol lol lmao lol lol lol". This is because, to almost everyone reading Twitter, Hacker News, Substack, or the NYT comments, I'm just a rando.

It takes time to build respect and credibility, so keep at the good faith discussion, give people a reason to read what you're writing, and keep your relative obscurity in perspective on the way up.

I agree with you to a point, but it's not my experience that speakers gain credibility and respect by giving good advice / showing good judgement / making accurate predictions. This would be true in traditional discourse, but not online. Online it feels as if speakers gain an audience by demonstrating their world view as loudly and as viciously as possible. It's like a group of children where one has learned that the way to get attention is to scream louder and longer than the others. I also have this feeling that social media is ruled by those who are willing to spend their time and effort to elevate a particular point of view no matter how unpopular it is.

I know of many specific examples in my field where the most thoughtful people who operate the most frequently in good faith have nowhere near the following of bad faith loudmouths.

I assume it's entertainment. People enjoy watching drama. Social media is their drama hit, and genuine communicators are frankly more boring.

The dynamics you describe are real, especially on the big social-media utilities like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. "Boo outgroup" is the easiest thing to sell in the attention economy, the louder and more viciously, the better.

But "building an audience" is a different than building credibility, trust, and respect. If you just aim for the most eyeballs, you find yourself vulnerable to what some people call audience capture, where your audience controls you, rather than the other way around.

For example, Trump has a huge audience, but that didn't stop an audience from booing him when he recommended getting vaccinated. [0]

The best most of us can hope for, if we're careful, is influence on a small group of people.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-al...

> Speakers gain credibility and respect by [...]

Do you mean only at the local level, individually? Because it sure isn't hard to find extremely popular speakers with a great deal of influence that run counter to most of those points. It is hard not to conclude that the only thing that scales well in social media is to correctly deduce what most people want to hear, and then say it. People don't care about deception, good advice, good faith discussion, none of that, so long as you confirm the biases they already hold.

People really want to be told they are right, and were always right.

No, I mean at any level.

I agree with the what you're saying, but I'm not talking about things that make people popular, I'm talking about argumentation and what makes someone persuasive. I'm talking about the relatively rare circumstances that can create opportunities to repudiate biases instead of confirm them.

Hypothesis: bad faith communicators are more persuasive among people who mostly agree with them; good faith communicators are more persuasive among people who mostly disagree with them.

Not sure if this is accurate, and I'm sure misses some nuance, but rings true-ish to me.

This is only true at simulacra level 1 [1], when communication is focused on objective facts. This is not a good way to understand communication in business relationships, social media, traditional news media, or politics. I like talking with my friends who communicate this way, but it's not the only way that people communicate, and pretending that it is will lead to confusion.

There are other ways to persuade: You could lie about the facts of the argument, you could convince others you're in their group or that your opponent is in a group opposed to them, or you could say whatever you think they want to hear and sprinkle your message in among it.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEX7G2N7CtmZQ3eB5/simulacra-...

I agree with all of that. The context for my comment is discussions involving good-faith arguments intended to change hearts and minds (more or less object-level or simulacra level 1 arguments).

The parent commenter wrote that "good-faith arguments don't scale". I don't agree with that, because good-faith arguments do scale with social capital. People often run afoul of several problems that make it seem like they don't:

- Their reach exceeds their grasp: they want to persuade strangers, but don't have enough social capital to pull it off.

- They think they're involved in a good-faith discussion or argument, but the other participants are competing for status or trying to entertain themselves (or others).

In other words, I don't think good-faith arguments are the only way to persuade people, but if that's your preferred technique, you have to develop credibility, respect, and trust - on top of building an audience, which is a whole different matter.

You make a very solid point - public conversations are way more predisposed to bad faith - who's got ability to accept the perception of looking bad in public?!

> My personal opinion is that this is a misaligned incentive that social platforms should correct structurally, rather than via governance or policies. And pushing the corrective actions back down to the individual is a cop-out.

hmm... I rather think the opposite is the case. Its all about playing to the crowd. And that there is no incentive for anyone (apart from the good faith individual) to do anything about it - all that noise translates into engagement with the platform.

>Sometimes they are not speaking to you at all, but rather to your listeners. And the larger your pool of listeners the more likely you'll encounter arguments in bad faith because it turns out that if the goal is persuasion then good-faith arguments don't scale.

I hesitate to throw this out there because, in general, I don't agree with all the hot takes such as "the internet has made us dumber" or whatever negative trait is the flavor of the week to blame on technology. But in this case, I'd say a lot of this is the direct result of forums/social media/etc.

People are arguing/debating the same way politicians do on stage with each other. Functionally we are millions of surrogates arguing everywhere for whatever individual/policy/ideal we believe in. The goal isn't to change the mind of your "opponent," it's to convince onlookers that you're right. And whether that victory is the result of the "better argument" is secondary - the point is to win over the most people by whatever means are deemed most effective. This is bad for dialogue, but (usually) great for winning debate competitions.

I'll do this sometimes in web forums. There are certain points of view expressed certain ways where I already have a pretty good idea of exactly what the poster's opinions are, how they'll defend them, and how they'll respond to any questions, and I know my likelihood of getting them to reconsider or maybe even engage on terms I consider reasonable is nearly zero, but I might reply anyway just so lookers-on can get a sense that there are alternatives to that POV (and that, after a couple back-and-forths, that maybe their position isn't as strong as their very-certain tone implies)

That's incredibly insightful.

Expanding a bit further, all sorts of problems arise when participants bring with them different conversational frames. Take, for instance, the case where one participant frames a back and forth as in the same way they would a dyadic conversation, while the other participants frames the same strip of events as a debate in front of an audience. The former may see the later as being bombastic or evasive, while the later may see the former as being naïve or pestering. There are all sorts of rhetorical registers available or unavailable to each depending on how each frames the exchange and using an "unavailable" rhetorical register in a particular frame can be keyed as a deception. Bad faith arguments, can then be thought of as deliberately fabricating a frame in order to induce a false belief (ex: that the participants share a common frame).

> this is a misaligned incentive that social platforms should correct structurally, rather than via governance or policies. And pushing the corrective actions back down to the individual is a cop-out.

Can platforms do a better job at framing online discussion in such a way that makes it easier to maintain common framing? Which sort of laminations are available or could be invented in order to facilitate common framing and allow readers to identify frame-breaking activity? Platform creators literally create the mediums for these interactions, the choices they make make them structural participants in the ways in which these interactions play out. As such there is an implicit responsibility placed on them because of their agency in this process.

It’s more basic too. Bad faith redefines the nature of the situation. It’s no longer a conversation and instead a game. And in game theory you have to play on level ground as your opponent. Ie when they go low you have to go low or exit the conversation turned game. “Going high” in modern rhetoric doesn’t actually net strategic advantage.

So maybe that’s insightful. Point out that conversations (unless they’re debates and everyone’s agreed to debate) are not games.

Does digitization remove the negative consequences of communicating in bad faith?

In that sense, does it change the game, just through removing those consequences and thus making bad faith a more attractive strategy than it would be otherwise (e.g. face to face reputation based communication)?

Maybe you are right and positing it as a game is itself reductive, and gets people into a zero-sum mindset, rather than viewing conversation as a win-win.

"Social media made y'all way to comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it." - Mike Tyson

Digitization has clearly added lots of negatives that otherwise wouldn’t last. As simple as, does it really make sense for something local with only local and fittingly small consequences, to be discussed at a global level? But anybody can post a photo or video to be seen the world over. Depending on content there will even be users on the internet policing (“influencing”) other users in the internet to weigh in on whatever. But clearly human societies function at a level of cohesion that breaks apart at scale. Ie there isn’t one truly universal way to live that everyone can and in time could be made to live.

Edit-I’d venture even the ability for the internet to bring together people who would otherwise not have a cohort “breaks at scale” because people just don’t scale like that.

I think digitization, specifically the commoditization of attention in advertising-supported social media, has strongly incentivized bad-faith communication. It turns out that outrage and conflict are a great way to get attention. So systems made to profit from keeping attention have inadvertently started promoting conflict and outrage to capture the value of the attention produced.

This has been profitable enough that these social media now dominate a large part of public discussions, and other platforms have followed suit either by choice or by selection pressure. Hence a large part of public communication is happening in a context that is (inadvertently or intentionally) built to encourage conflict and outrage. This rewards bad-faith communication, so that is what we get.

I find that it depends on the size of the community, and your stake in that community. If you're a regular somewhere, you're a lot less likely to start some shit there. After a while some users earn a reputation that affects all future interactions.

I treat my local subreddit like I would treat my local pub, especially since I know a few of its users IRL, and many tie my username to my business. I can't say the same about large subreddits.

Tight moderation also helps a ton. It enforces a certain tone, and after a while the community crystallises around that tone and enforces it itself. You don't pick fights at the country club.

I realise now that I stopped interacting in larger communities. I prefer quieter channels where people have a reputation to uphold.

Agreed moderation is essential. It's easy to spot and remove people who don't care about harmony or true discussion, but it often doesn't happen (or moderators are themselves bad actors).

My policy as a moderator was to moderate tone but not opinions. Some people weren't happy when "the good guys" got their posts deleted and "the bad guys" didn't, because the latter left their guns at the door.

The new moderation team is more heavy-handed. Of course people still aren't happy.

It's a tough job and the pay sucks.

You can side step. A common tactic for mediators.

Consider a verbal fight within a couple. Everyone wants to have the last word and both throw loudly anything they can come up with at each other. In such a situaiton you may be able to break that mental stance of your opponent by "simply" shifting the topic/perspective to something, they did not expect at all. This way, you may be able to force you opponent to give up the trench they dig themself into.

I know its not simple. This is more education than superficial conversation.

At which point you’ve used a rhetorical tactic and turned a conversation into a game.

I’m saying the space of people communicating is larger than the space of people using words in rhetorical games.

When a conversation is stagnating in a cycle and you elevate it on a meta level, away from the original topic to that conversation and how it is going, you will not only display good faith but you may be able to find the traces of good faith in your opponent and maybe turn back to the original topic.

You cannot flip the table and still call it a game. Its not a game move when your intention is progress and not a rhetorical win.

I personally use the meta-conversational move a lot, and it usually turns heated political discussions into more thoughtful philosophy discussions. I think because most people don't have such strong identity based beliefs around questions like "how can we know if something is right/true/good/bad, what does that mean?"

The meta-conversation technique blew up for me once. A buddy and I got into it and I went in that direction of how do we know if something is good or bad, right or wrong, and it had him feeling incredibly frustrated and distraught, questioning whether his friends have fundamentally different values than he does. I recognized in that moment he seemed very emotionally vulnerable and so I switched out of my head exploration and opened up deep abkut some of the emotional struggles I had been facing. I think very often conflicts are not about the actual conflict we discuss, but about tangential, or even unrelated, things.

That actually sounds like a true philosophical situation, where you both questioned some deeply held beliefs. This can have epistemologically and existential repercussions for the individual, especially if you are emotionally invested (and we always are at some level)

Perhaps, I'll think about that a bit more. I think I was seeing it more as me using theorizing as a defense mechanism to avoid opening up emotionally and connecting with my friend on a deeper level. I've noticed in my life that I can often dive deeper into theory, hypothetical situations, and general philosophy as way to distance myself from how I'm actually feeling in the moment and from saying that to others.

Oh yea, as a general rule of thumb I have found that if any party is getting emotional (defensive, frustrated, hurt, etc) then the conversation will have to pivot to feelings.. something about the pre-frontal cortex going offline when we get into a certain state.

I've seen this state called different things, like "Exiles" in IFS therapy, "below the line", "tilted", "triggering painful spots", I usually call it "defensive".

(Aside... a thing I've learned is not to ask if someone is feeling defensive (if they are, they'll say no). Instead I think the better move is to ask if they feel like I'm not listening, or not understanding their position. This lines up with the internal thoughts of feeling defensive.)

All this to say, rational conversation is possible when two people are in a rational state but there are other states of being.

(Aside.. I find that rational communication techniques like NVC are actually devilishly hard to put into practice all the time because they go out the window when we get tilted.)

(Aside... EFT couples therapy is designed around communication in an emotionally vulnerable state as opposed to rational, and supposedly has pretty good empirical results)

I find the best tactic in this situation is to let the other party exhaust themselves. You're never going to be heard, so just listen (actually listen, not pretend) until they've got whatever they want to say out, and then make a response that shows you've listened and tried to understand.

> If I ever find myself in a conversation where I'm in the shoes of Person A, using good-faith communication means actually risking a complete failure of communication. Why even bother to communicate?

The article actually addresses this, and in a good way IMHO (in the paragraph starting "Avoiding social catastrophe"). The reason to both to communicate, in such cases, is to attempt to demonstrate your willingness (and ability!) to engage in good faith, and thereby eventually restoring faith in Person B that good-faith communication is possible.

Note that this is explicitly not an attempt to convince the other party of whatever it is you're arguing about. The goal is not to change their view, but to restore a society in which discussion about those views in good faith is at least possible again.

Only a tiny percentage of users take part in online discussions . It is important to communicate with bad faith actors so that the overwhelming majority of users who are simply lurkers are exposed to ideas from "the other side". Refusing to engage with bad faith actors is leaving their ideas unchallenged out in the open.

The issue being that you're operating in good faith, while they're putting on a show. You're immediately at a disadvantage because they can use any tool at their disposal, whereas you have to stick to truth and rationality.

Unfortunately, the latter two don't typically scale all that well, especially as the bad actor hones their ability to put you in a rhetorical box.

I think the continuation of this line of thought is often the argument 'their bad faith communication is so effective we have to counter it with our own'. I hope that this argument under-estimates the intelligence of the silent majority.

That is another good way to phrase the problem described by the parent post of yours.

There is not a way to beat bad faith communication with good faith communication at scale, because the latter doesn't scale, because the average/median person is not intelligent enough for it. I wish they were.

I have never seen anyone get converted by bad faith arguments, but I have seen people get converted by good faith arguments. So it seems good faith arguments are inherently much stronger, while bad faith arguments are useless except for frustrating the other side.

Considering I see bad faith arguments from politicians in power all the time, I wouldn't say anything conclusive about good faith or bad faith being stronger. This is before mentioning how many people are running around with a victim mentality, quickly antagonize others or engage in social activities which reinforce segregation and labeling over trying to form a social understanding.

A lot of people love drama, and bad faith creates drama. Good faith creates solutions, and a lot of people seek solutions. That alone is enough to be skeptical of anything conclusive.

The ultimate bad faith argument is government propaganda, which definitely works wonders in shaping public opinion.

Bad faith arguments convert by quantity, not quality. If you overwhelm the good faith information with mountains of bad faith information, you'll convince a lot of people, none of whom will be able to point at one specific thing that convinced them.

Bad faith arguments can be as simple as a slogan.

A problem is that one has limited time and energy to respond to these comments, though the idea you've mentioned has motivated responses I've made in the past. It can be draining to submit a well-sourced comment written respectfully, then get downvoted (this is more prevalent on Reddit) where fewer people see it.

I've resolved to avoid responses, unless it's a subject where I have an especially valuable perspective (e.g. personal expertise, I have a passage from a credible book that could be relevant, or I have a highly relevant anecdote to share).

It's almost always not worth it to get involved in a controversial topic discussion (examples include journalism, Apple products, urban planning and whether the ending of a popular television series was good or not). It can be distracting and draining, especially if people respond negatively or you get downvoted (I tell myself it's just internet points, but it feels punishing despite my rational thoughts), and I'm unlikely to change minds. There's more to life that's more rewarding (e.g. reading a book, physical exercise, even playing a relaxing video game for a few minutes).

What you’re describing is simply person B not really listening, and if that’s true then it’s pointless to argue the point anyways. Person A is better off sticking with the compromise because it doesn’t cost him/her anything to do so, and hey maybe there’s a very slight chance person B clues in.

Basically sticking to good faith even when it’s not reciprocated is usually the best option, or just saving your energy by dropping the topic. The alternative is usually just ego stuff.

I look for this in interviews. Obviously people are typically on best behavior and nervous so liable to make non-meaningful* errors, but I look for humility and openness, hard as it is to find upon such a high pressure and artificial situation. If it does it’s positive.

More importantly the founders set the culture through their own behavior and most new hires adopt and adapt to the local culture. So if you can propagate humility, openness to changing minds, etc your company will become stronger and more fun.

And I use the word “company” deliberately: “corporation” and “business” and technical tools, but a ”company” is a group of people getting together. Often corporation and company are used interchangeably, but effective organizations know the difference.

Unfortunately you can't always know ahead of time, even here on HN I have found that sometimes if I give an inch, others will take a mile. But if that happens I think you have two options: Out right correction, just outright say "Hey wait a minute, that's not what I meant." or, step back and accept that you are probably not changing this persons mind today.

The trouble with the internet, or really any public speaking, is that you might accidentally end up on the side of the conversation you are against in the eyes of the public, so just letting it go may not be a good idea.

I think to an extent people do this unconsciously, or offenders don't realize their projection onto others is bad faith. It's habit that is mistakenly believed to be a good heuristic. I expect this triggers as they switch to "argument" mode following contradiction, assuming a posture of attacking/defending, casting nuance aside.

As online spaces are concerned, one thing I liked about forums is that communities, while large, became increasingly familiar and you could reasonably expect some good faith discussion over time. On spaces like reddit, all the tip toeing in the world doesn't prevent it. You could be Mr Rogers speaking to someone's "elephant in the brain" and it wouldn't prevent it.

I think there's a degree of market segmentation (as it were) when it comes to arguing. The fastest way someone can discredit themselves in my eyes is to be too certain about something. In your example I'd be much more open to someone who admits that their side could be in the wrong than someone who says that it's impossible. Especially where there's not enough evidence for that kind of claim. But you're right that certainty does appeal in other contexts.

I think you intended Person A to be someone with an opposing view. But I read this Person A as a friend that strongly likes Politician X, and in some ways that seemed even more appropriate to what the article is talking about. Especially if "politician X" is something like a controversial issue that is strongly moralized. People often end up outwardly adopting an almost Manichean set of opinions on things, even if our internal beliefs are more nuanced. So we end up saying Politician X is perfect, even if we have more mixed opinions. It's not Bad Faith communication in the same vein as a troll on a forum, we're acting in bad faith to maintain cohesion and membership among our own social group.

The OP articulates this well in a paragraph:

A key feature of escalating extremism is a belief that group membership requires bad faith engagements with out-groups. In these contexts, bad faith behavior is often justified to maintain in-group membership and consensus. The normalization of bad faith communication contributes to the creation of extreme in-group pressures, which can rupture identities and exacerbate mental health crises. Personal instabilities usually lead to a doubling down on the need for group membership, increasing rationalizations and amplifications of bad faith practices.

But sadly, the people most prone to bad-faith communication are also probably least likely to take this criticism and improve.

It's not that people prone to this are doing so because of poor communication skills that can be improved upon, bad faith communication is by definition intentional.

Why even bother to communicate?

You probably should disregard anyone communicating in bad faith.

I think the biggest problem is cult of personality. Instead of discussing actual issues we focus on elevating or disparaging people. In your example - what is the chance that 'your' politician X is always right?

Isn't that more about drifting meaning of the language? "You might be right" is a common way of actually meaning to say "I reluctantly agree that you're definitely right".

Did you forget the addendum "and I was definitely wrong" because that's how I use it!

When this happens I generally pause and say something like I just said X, what did you hear? If that doesn't work then I throw out a hypothesis like it sounds like you heard Y, is that right? Once we agree upon what I said and what they heard then I clarify that I don't believe Y, I sincerely believe X.

You can't control the outcome of a conversation, and cynicism goes hand in hand with bad faith. Communication is still the most awesome thing that humans do, or will ever be able to do!

That's some serious pom-pom action you just did. There are times when bad faith communication is just a waste of everyone's time. It's great to think that by having a conversation positive results will occur. However, that's not always going to happen. Since I'm not part of a diplomatic entourage where the mere act of continuing to talk past each other is seen as a positive, that same behavior does not tend to benefit normal people. At times, I have chosen to just end/walk away from a conversation just to avoid the energy and inevitable frustration. Maybe it's cynicism, but as you've said, I can't control the outcome but I can control it as far as me continuing to be a part of it.

You're right that my pom-pom action was serious, but it sounds like you're imaging a different kind of dilemma than I was. You're referring to walking away from an unproductive conversation, while I was responding to a cynical argument for choosing bad faith over good.

“Consider this example: Person A, displaying some humility, says : "You might be right, there is a chance politician X is in the wrong". Person A assumes this is interpreted by Person B as: "There is uncertainty about politician X being in the wrong" Person B actually interprets this as: "Person A has admitted, without any doubt, to politician X being completely in the wrong"”

Reminds me of a discussion with a neighbor. I was talking about things I didn’t like Obama or Biden had done. His response was “see? Should have voted for Trump”. He didn’t understand at all when I told him that Trump is even more wrong in my opinion. People are trained to totally agree or disagree with one side.

Those most likely to have strong disagreements mostly consist of politically engaged liberals at 6-8% of the population and politically engaged conservatives at 6-8% of the population. Because of this a more accurate representation of what is going on is that persons A and B disagree strongly with persons C and D and persons E through Z really wish that persons A through D would find some middle ground that all can live with even if they harbor objections. In this larger context it may make sense to call out bad faith communication and engage in good faith communication for the benefit of the larger population who get dragged into political conflicts.

I think the short answer is don't argue w/ an idiot.

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